Wikis in Law Firms - Toronto Wiki Tuesday

Please note! Last minute venue change - we will be at Insomnia. Details here.

This month's Toronto Wiki Tuesday will be held tomorrow (Tuesday) night. I volunteered to take the lead on the evening's discussion. I want to talk about two subjects:

- the acceptance of social media by lawyers and, specifically, the use of wikis in law firms; and

- how best to develop a course on wikis

I'm hoping that any members of law firms who are using wikis will drop by give some input.

Details about Toronto Wiki Tuesdays is over at the Blended Perspectivesblog. We meet at Rower's Pub. It's free to attend; food and drink are of course available. Please RSVP at Upcoming.org.

I hope you'll join us!

Unconference: The Book

A book on unconferences is being written in a collaborative way using a wiki. To learn more about this project, see my post over at SLAW.

New course: Social Networking Tools: Hands on Learning (Aug. 9/07)

I am very excited to announce a new continuing ed course I will be teaching at the Professional Learning Centre, Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto:

Social Networking Tools: Hands on Learning

Web 2.0, Facebook, Second Life - have taken the world and the library by storm! Explore these social media networking tools in this hands-on computer lab class. Set up a blog and wiki, view RSS feeds in an aggregator, try a social bookmarking site such as del.icio.us, and create a profile on professional networking site LinkedIn. Look at Flickr, LibraryThing, Ning, Facebook, MySpace and Second Life. Test out the latest apps such as Twitter and Jaiku. We will try some of these and have a "tour" of others, as well as discuss the implications for libraries.

Specific learning outcomes for students

At the end of the course, participants will:

* be able to set up a blog using Blogger or Wordpress
* be able to set up a wiki using PB Wiki
* set up some RSS feeds in a web-based aggregator such as Google Reader or Bloglines
* set up a profile on business networking site LinkedIn
* try using a web-based social bookmarking site such as del.icio.us or equivalent
* become familiar with Ning, Twitter, Jaiku, Flickr, LibraryThing , MySpace, Facebook and Second Life either through hands-on use or a live "tour" given to the class, depending upon time
* become familiar with how these are being used by libraries and library staff

Key topics covered

* who in society is using these applications?
* how are they being used by libraries and library staff?
* what are both the positive and negative aspects to these technologies?
* using social networking applications inside the firewall
* issues surrounding communication in public spaces
* what is Library 2.0 compared to Web 2.0
* how to learn more
* how to stay current in this area

Target Audience:
Library technicians, librarians, library managers and directors as well as others interested in Web 2.0.

When: Thursday, August 9, 2007, 9 am - 5 pm
Where: Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto, Toronto
Register

Thanks go to Rebecca Jones who shared the original concept with me (and I just had to jump on the opportunity), and to Eva Kupidura for working with me to set this up and who keeps things running smoothly at the PLC.

This will be my very first time attempting this feat, and you won't want to miss it!! Sign up now since spaces will be limited to the number of computers in the room.

Project Planning Using Blogs and Wikis

Liveblogging

Nicole Engard, Jenkins Law Library

problem using email for project planning; difficult to follow and go back to decisions a year later.

Use a blog for each project; give every staff member the ability to contribute to or create a blog. Discussion is still date-stamped.

Everyone can read what is happening in other departments.

Reduces clutter in in-box. Easy to go back to see the year, and complete reports.

Uses wikis for collecting documentation.

She opened up their site live to us and demonstrated some of the features. Kind of hard to transcribe everything, but here are a few things:

They have a shared calendar that is web-based. Everyone is able to edit it.

To do lists - share to do items with other staff, mark items off, keep track of everything. She hasn't said what platform they are using (or perhaps I missed it).

Every staff member has the ability to start their own project.

Staff members don't have to focus on making things look good; they have the power but should focus on writing (i.e. creating content). The web team go in to make things pretty. Web team also have the ability to delete posts, but doesn't happen very often.

Staff get email alerts when things are updated if they want.

Use good web design, icons to make things clear, Dilbert cartoon to inspire people to visit the site. :-)

They have a "future wish list" thread for everyone. Also works for posting meeting minutes and people can post their comments about the meeting.

WYSIWYG editor - WYSIWYG Pro; they also have ability to edit by HTML. They decided to go with editor since it allows for multiple editors on one page. Approx. $40 for non-profits.

Limit the number of Word documents; prefer to term them into wiki pages so they are searchable, easier to handle.

People can read about projects in other departments; improves communication, lets people know what is happening across the organization.

It is an in-house developed platform based on MySQL using PHP for the front end. They would have to do a lot of work to make it available as open source. She is willing to share parts of their code.

See her website where she will post her presentation:

web2learning.net